we'll be able to join hands and sing in the voice of the old negro spiritual, free at last, free at last, thank god almighty, we are free at last. / her name is pepper. >> i lived a secret life. >> she was kidnapped at age 4. >> we got in the car and we never went back. >> she spent decades trying to find her way home again. and she finally made it. or so she thought. >> i said, i think i'm rhonda christy, or do you know rhonda patricia christie? and there was a long pause. >> a picture of my parents. >> pepper's story had many ups and downs.

>> when i looked at the e-mail, i just couldn't even believe it. >> but after so many tears, so many years, and so many turns in her story -- >> i was like, whoa. >> there are still more stunning twists to be revealed. >> it's amazing. the best gift ever. >> "lost and found." hello, i'm craig melvin and welcome to "dateline" extra. a young girl was abducted at the age of 4 and raised by her kidnapper. for the next four decades she searched for her family, her name and herself. her story has an extraordinary ending, and as it turns out, that ending was just the beginning. here is keith morrison. >> reporter: our story begins with this mother of a teenage daughter. a woman who had spent most of

her life trying to figure out who she was. what was her name? where did she come from? we'll tell you about her long search, her discovery finally of what felt like truth. but as you'll soon see, real truth can be elusive. it can hide. let's begin at the beginning. but at the beginning, all she had was a memory. >> a twin canopy bed with pink ruffles around it, wind of waved over the top of it. >> it was dreamlike really, and for years it was all that felt real in her upside down life. >> it was white. everything matched. >> the closet full of dresses, the dolls, the teddy bears. >> actually, there was a little old-fashioned where you put the baby in the wagon. >> and the reason for those

tormenting memories? >> it's a lot of hurt and sadness, sadness for the little girl that didn't have a life. >> for most of her life, the part after that little girl's bedroom, she has been pepper, and the baffling terrifying story of what happened to her, kidnapped, held captive for years, is the reason she gripped that life preserver of a memory. shocking where that memory will lead by the end of this hour. she was, she is certain of this, an only child, and spoiled most likely, showered with attention and toys and dresses by the parents whose faces she cannot quite pull into focus. they're in their little apartment. was it san diego perhaps? >> it looks like a very happy childhood, like love was there. >> the two parents, blonde bee hive and her parents, but her mother's name lost now. there was a nickname bobby, and in those early years she was always, always there.

her father, on the other hand, was absent mostly, long stretches away, punctuated by glorious reunions when she'd be bundled up like some china doll and be bustled to the harbor where the navy ships come in. >> we would go see him because he was coming in from the navy. it was an exciting moment and she would get us all dressed up. it was the anticipation of going to the shipyard and having a lot of attention, i think, as a child. >> the memories of how she survived it all, of course, all the trouble. >> holding my mom's hand, having fun with my mom, being in the moment of joy. i don't have bad memories. >> oh, yes, those, the bad memories, like the day everything good went away. it was 1973, though she and her happy little childhood bubble had no idea what year it was. she knows she was not yet 5, that it was autumn, that someone came to the door with a plan. >> i remember a woman coming over and knocking on the door.

>> her name was shirley. she was a friend of her mother's, she said. she said the little girl she brought with her was rene and rene was 6. a little older. didn't matter. they dashed off to her bedroom to play. this is rene now. that room is stuck in her memory, too. >> her room was gorgeous, a nice size room for a little kid. she had a canopy bed. she had tons of dresses, toys galore. >> and you had none of that? >> no, and i was like, wow, this is nice. >> an alien world to rene, the most wonderful thing she had ever seen. while the little girls played in the bedroom, shirley was with bobby in the living room talking. then she called rene. >> so, it was time to leave. i didn't want to go. i said, can we stay longer? >> she said, no. but your little friend is coming with us, shirley. >> she came and that's how everything started. >> so it did. it was to be an overnight, the girls were told.

a little fun. they would stay with shirley in her los angeles motel room and return the next morning. that was the plan, said shirley. but shirley lied. >> we got in the car and we never went back. and my life completely changed from that point on. completely. >> this woman took you away. >> yes, and this was our -- >> you weren't taken home again? >> no, i never went back again. >> do you remember that feeling? >> yes, it was -- i wanted to go home. >> she had been kidnapped, must have been. there was no little girls overnight in shirley's motel room. they stopped there only to pack some belongings, hit the road, and a blissful childhood entered the fog of mystery, the memory of the beautiful bedroom. all she had to confront the nightmare just beginning. >> coming up, a 4-year-old on the road with her kidnapper. >> i knew that everything happening to us was completely wrong at a very young age.

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welcome back to "dateline" extra. a 4-year-old girl is kidnapped from her home, taken from the only life she knew by a woman who told her she'd be going on a sleep over with a play mate for just one night. that one night turned into a terrifying odyssey that wouldn't end for many, many nights to come. here again is keith morrison. >> reporter: the story you'll hear now lives in the vivid so real you can touch the memories of two frightened girls. it began in a down market motel in l.a. whose neighborhood was decidedly not child friendly. it was to be a one night sleep over with new friend rene. instead the a bullet who brought her here, a woman named shirley, simply didn't take her home again. instead she packed some belongings, put the girls in her car, and hit the road. where did they go?

the little girl had no idea, but she did know that from now on she had a new name. they called her pepper, pepper smith. she was not yet 5 years old. >> we lived in cars and motels and going from state to state, staying at salvation armys to get a meal here and there. >> what's it like to live in a car? >> it's horrible. it's embarrassing. >> she was confused, of course, and terribly frightened at first. she begged, take me home. shirley ignored her. she imagined running away. >> i had nowhere to go and i was too scared. >> then as the weeks and months and then years went by, as her powers of reasoning grew, the question grew, too, did her mother bobby actually give her away? shirley told pepper that rene was her sister. the two girls listened wide eyed

as shirley explained to strangers she was their grandmother, that their parents had been killed in a car accident. >> i knew that everything that was happening to us was completely wrong at a very, very young age. >> why had she been taken? she didn't know. not for money certainly. there were no ransom demands. and without pepper's birth certificate, shirley couldn't use her to score public assistance, though she did use rene that way. frightened, compliant rene, eager for a mother's love even if that mother figure was shirley. >> i never wanted to do anything wrong. i felt like if i did something wrong or whatever, she wouldn't love me and she would give me away. >> wouldn't love me? shirley told her, says rene, that she was born to a prostitute drug addict named gerry, that shirley saved baby rene, raised her as a daughter, but kept rene in line by threatening to abandon her.

>> did she ever threaten to do that in >> yeah, many times we'd do something wrong and she would say, well, you stop doing that or i'm going to send you off to gerry's house. >> and so they lived a life of packing up and fleeing state to state one flop house to the next searching for the cheapest place to stay and skip out of, hunger constant. medical care nonexistent. when money ran out, as it often did, shirley drove to the nearest truck stop. the girls would bed down in the car and watch shirley sneak off to do, well, they didn't know. and alone and frightened they hold onto each other and watched the shadows of strange men pass by their car until the night went, terrified and unable to sleep. rene followed shirley. >> she's taking a long time and i'm getting scared because i'm thinking she left or she's died or something. so, i go in to where they work

on the cars and she's like on the side over here and he's on top of her and i didn't know -- i got scared and she seen me and she yelled at me and said, get out of here, go. >> at least then they had a bit of money, but always pepper was afraid. afraid to ask for help, afraid to ask why she'd been taken. afraid of shirley's threats. >> she would scare us to believe that we were in a better place. she was doing something good for us. >> did you ever understand why she wouldn't take you back home? >> her personality was very up and down, like very angry. and so if i asked questions, she would say stuff like, if you want to find your mom, she's on the streets shooting heroin and a prostitute. >> tirades were frequent, verbal and physical abuse a regular

occurrence. >> she would whip us with the belt, slap us, verbally cuss at us, verbally abuse us. >> and threaten to send you away. >> right. >> i just took the belt because it just -- if you take it -- it's hard to explain, but if you just take it, it -- she gets out of the rage faster so to speak. >> they went to school when they could, made very few friends and lost the ones they did make. struggled to be ordinary kids and then normal teenagers. >> all i wanted to be is loved, that's it. and i never got any kind of love that i wanted. >> instead, they were trapped. truck stop nomads with a woman who kidnapped one, if not boeing of them. they drifted across any number of state lines for years. and some time in the early 80s they settled down here. shirley pulled up to this motel

in los angeles county and took a job as the motel's cleaning woman in did change for a free room. and if it wasn't much, at least it gave them some measure of stability, and they signed up at a local school, junior high for pepper, high school for rene. much to shirley's disapproval. >> shirley would tell us, girls don't go to school. they get married. why do you want to go to school? i didn't like being late to school. i didn't like being absent all the time. >> so they got themselves up every morning and went to school and kept going. and then pepper was 12. eight of those years with shirley when she saw her chance to escape and seized it. she made herself useful as a baby-sitter for the couple next door in room 109. and when the family moved out of the motel, pepper went with them. but it didn't last long. pepper's new household caught in its own spiral of alcoholism and

dysfunction was as troubled and messy as her own life was. she swallowed her pride and moved back to room 110 colonial motel, even though by then, says pepper, shirley didn't seem to care much what she did. >> i remember when i was trying to so-called run away, plot my escape before it went into action. i was in my mind going, i'm going to show her. i remember thinking that. but she didn't care. she didn't come to get me. >> still, having tasted freedom once, pepper was determined to get away from her kidnapper for good. a second time she took a chance, moved out with a family and a second time had to return. and then finally, by the time she turned 16, pepper left for good. but that meant she left rene behind, too. rene, who so needed pepper and was alone now with shirley. >> she was my best friend growing up. that was my best friend, you know. we did everything together. we fight like sisters, we did

everything together. >> rene was feeling abandoned. >> i was telling her, don't go, you know, stay here. i need you. you're my sister. so, she went, she did her thing. and i was upset and i was sad. >> by 1986 and on her own now, pepper had all but given up hope that she'd ever find her real parents. but now she began to encounter a more immediate problem. the inhe feevitable number thats with having no real name, no birth certificate, no i.d. though she was enrolled at school as rhonda smith, she had no way to prove this was her legal name. with some cooperation from shirley, her search for such documents seemed hopeless. and then -- how did you find out she was sick? >> she turned completely yellow and they diagnosed her with pancreatic cancer. she died quickly after that. >> with shirley on her death bed, pepper tried to act like the dutiful daughter. went to see her regularly, tried

to make her comfortable. but there was another terribly important reason to see her then. maybe the most important. one last opportunity to find out who she was. as she was dying, did you try to find -- you know, maybe she'd make a death bed confession and say i did take you and here's what your parents names are and how to find them. any of that happen? did you ask? >> oh, yeah. >> and shirley had a response for the girl she renamed pepper. the question was, what could she do with that answer? >> coming up, if j.c. dug allison rosaer after 18 years, certainly there must be hope for pepper. >> it triggered a lot of my own personal memories. how come i didn't get found. i felt so missing. >> but would she be missing much longer? when "lost and found" continues.

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returning to "lost and found," here again is keith morrison. >> it was the summer of her 16th year, the girl they called pepper smith sat at the death bed of the woman who had stolen her with questions burning in her brain. she had to know who was she, where did she come from, who were her parents, what was her true identity. and at the very least, where could she find the documents that could give her a real life? she took a round about route. she asked the question indirectly. >> i took drivers ed just like

any 16-year-old wants to get -- i want to be free. i want to go work and be free from all this. i have a plan. i asked her for -- i need my birth certificate and i need this. she told me, they changed the laws. you can't get your driver's license until you're 18 years old. yeah. and i'm supposed to believe this as i sit in the classroom where i have friends who are getting permits. >> of course. >> so, she took the lies with her. she was not going to tell. >> what about the berth certificate? >> never really gave me a concrete answer, nothing. i couldn't get anything out of her. the lies stayed with her. >> shirley knew the answers, of course. knew the whole bizarre story, but she looked pepper in the eye through her obvious pain and told her nothing. she left the lies behind and took the truth to her grave on july 29, 1986, at the age of 63. she was buried here, this cemetery, in an unmarked grave.

rene, now 19, got on with life, moved in with her boyfriend. soon pepper showed up at their apartment, homeless and nowhere else to turn to. and everywhere pepper went from then on, shirley's poison gift followed because of that woman and what she did, pepper was officially, at least, a non-person, so it took a little while for her determination to come back. she was in her mid 20s, a single mother by then. if only she could find her birth certificate, that could lead her to her parents. anyway, she needed documents to live. she needed a passport. so, she contacted state offices, their departments of vital records perhaps with predictable results. tell me what it feels like when you know you have to go to an official and ask for something that you really, really, really need and you kind of know you think how it's going to go? >> i get emotional usually.

i usually cry. it was really -- i would -- it just brings me to a sad place. >> sitting across the desk from somebody crying -- >> oh, absolutely. >> and they wouldn't do anything for you? would say i can't do anything for you. >> you need this document. this is what you need to provide. >> sorry. >> i have no way to get this document because i don't know my parents' name. i don't know my real name. pepper. >> and once again, pepper felt perhaps understandably, like giving up. but by then she was living with her daughter in southlake tahoe working as a waitress. what do you know? hometown girl j.c. due guard years earlier was found. >> the community was buzzing all over the place with joy, and i was happy for j.c. lee. but it triggered a lot of my own personal memories, you know, and how come i didn't get found. and i felt so missing. >> so, once again, charged up

with determination, she launched a fresh attempt. turns out that such a thing as adult adoption, find someone to adopt her, and even if she couldn't find her parents, at least she could get an official identity and birth certificate, and thus, a passport. a friend offered to adopt her. so, pepper and friend applied and waited. and something quite amazing happened. someone in that great california bureaucracy did some research. a lot, apparently talked to pepper, asked her questions, pulled out records not readily available online. all pepper could offer were the names bob and bobbie and the date of her birth. and somehow buried among all those files in all their hundreds of millions, a match, and there it was, came in the mail after all these years, a copy of her actual birth certificate. the key to unlock her past, though she had no idea then, looking at that birth

certificate, that the appropriate question should have been this. was this her real past? >> coming up, a journey ending? >> this is it, you know. i was like, whoa. >> or was it just beginning? when "lost and found" continues. your testimony will save lives. mr. stevens? this is your new name. this is your new house. and a perfectly inconspicuous suv. you must become invisible. [hero] i'll take my chances.

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i'm dara brown with the top stories. porn star stormy daniels said she was threaten today keep silent about a sexual encounter with donald trump. in an interview with 60 minutes, she claims an unidentified man in las vegas told her to be quiet about her alleged relationship with trump when she was trying to sell her story in 2011. to lawyers who planned on joining the president's legal team in the russia investigation won't be taking those positions due to conflicts in the case. now back to "dateline." welcome back to "dateline"

extra. i'm craig melvin. the woman known as pepper finally has a piece of paper in her hand, the paper she's waited for most of her life to find, her birth certificate. but where would that piece of paper lead? here again is keith morrison. >> for 37 years she'd been searching for her parents, her life, her name. and now just as she'd given up ever finding the answer, here it was, a copy of her birth certificate with her real name in black and white. rhonda patricia christie, and there were the names of her parents, too. robert and barbara christie. >> this is it, you know. i was like, whoa, they were my parents, that bobbie and bob. >> with her name and social security numbers, rhonda and a friend tracked down a number in ohio. she dialed the number. a man answered. it was june 5th, 2010.

>> i said, are you robert dean christie? it was on the birth certificate. he said yes. are you married to a barbara or were you married? he said yes. i said, i think i'm rhonda christie or do you know rhonda patricia christie? and then there was a long pause. >> this is who she was talking to. his name is bob christie. >> i almost dropped the phone. she knew i had hesitated. she said, this is your daughter rhonda. and there was something that clicked in my mind that i -- the voice rang a bell. >> and he called to my mom, barbara, to pickup the phone. he said, rhonda is on the phone. she picked up the phone and the first thing out of her mouth was, shirley stole you. >> pepper was shaking inside and out. >> i went into like a very -- the most emotions i think i've ever had in my entire life ever. >> the memories were true, or so it certainly seemed.

she got on a plane for ohio. they were all, of course, 37 years older and in a way strangers now. but here they were, all the images she had clung to in fantasy, dreamed about for those 37 long years. >> and there you are in your bath. >> all those rolls, too. >> you were a chubby little baby. >> happy. a and look at you, just learning to walk. and smiling the whole way. you had a good life, honey. >> i know. >> so, it was happy and sad, comforting, but also deeply strange because sitting on this couch, pepper heard some stunning revelations. such as, these were not her birth parents. she had been adopted and the arrangement was mysterious. and now it was barbara's turn to tell a story. shirley had been her friend, she

said, had told her about a woman working in the sex trade named gerry smith who didn't want her babies. and one day shirley showed up at barbara's house with a 3 month old baby she calderon led rhond patricia smith. she could see it was iffy she want that baby so badly. she said she ignored the red flags. >> no, didn't care. didn't really care. >> she was going to see to it, she said, that rhonda was loved and cared for by the best parents she could ever possibly have. bob and barbara legally adopted their little princess four years later in the fall of 1973. and it was shortly after that, said barbara, when shirley and rene showed up at her door. >> and you kids played together and we visited together and she asked if rhonda could come spend the night with rene and took me

awhile to get an answer to that. i really had to think about that hard. i'm one of these tender hearted people and i said, well, it won't hurt to know her sister. >> sister? why, yes, barbara told rhonda she and rene were half sisters, daughters of the same mother, the woman who worked the strsz. barbara said that by then she didn't trust shirley with rhonda, but -- >> i want rhonda to know her sister. i wanted her to have family and stuff. and i asked bob and he said, no, she couldn't at first. and then he relented, let her go. and next morning we went to get her and they were gone. a and th >> and they didn't come back. >> bob and barbara called the police right away, of course. but here's what they said they were told. that the police could do nothing for them since they had allowed rhonda to leave with shirley. they were on their own.

and so desperate, they said, they started their own search. discovered shirley had taken the girls to a relative's house several states away. but when they got there was too late, all that remained were the little red shoes rhonda wore the day she was kidnapped. it was hopeless. they returned to their childless home, nothing left but the photographs of the little girl who stopped growing up for them at 4, and now out of the blue that phone call. and here she was. >> good, how are you? >> i'm good. >> it is definitely a gift. >> not only we get a daughter, we got a granddaughter. >> just in time it turns out. barbara had terminal cancer. she would die a year later. still, back then they celebrated. rene joined them for rhonda's birthday and christie's 38th wedding anniversary, an amazing reunion. of course "dateline" was happy to broadcast it all around the

country on march 25th, 2011. no idea that something quite unbelievable would happen, because one of the people who tuned in that night was a woman named gerry. and oh, what a story she had to tell. >> coming up, it was a story two sisters had waited a very long time to hear. >> 99.99% probability. >> that's it. >> yep, that means it's confirmed. >> when "lost and found" continues.

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welcome back to "dateline" extra. i'm craig melvin. returning to our story now, here again, keith morrison. >> when we first told you the

story about pepper smith and her lifelong journey to find her family, her identity, it was a friday night in march, 2011, and the following monday morning. >> my office received a call, and then i received an e-mail. >> attorney gloria allred found herself looking at a remarkable message. she had been helping the two sisters deal with their identity issues. there it was, a message on her blackberry. >> when i looked at the e-mail, i just couldn't even believe it. i looked at it about three times. am i really seeing this? >> it was a woman claiming to be the biological mother of both pepper and rene, claiming to be the woman who, according to shirley and barbara, was a child abandoning drug addict prostitute, probably dead. could this woman really be their mother? hardly a claim allred could take

on simple faith. >> i asked her to come in to see me the very next day, which she was very anxious and happy to do. i asked her to bring whatever evidence she had. >> and in the meeting the woman presented her evidence. >> she brought some photos that she had of pepper and rene when they were very little. >> she told allred she had been a waitress when the girls were little. brought a photo of that, too. and a picture of shirley, and also a photo of a man she said was the girls' father, long since dead. she said her name was gerry. >> i asked her immediately, gerry, would you be willing to do a dna test? she said, i'll take the dna test, but these are my children. i know it. >> allred put the dna test on the fast track and waited. and within a week called pepper and rene to her office to hear in person the results of the test. >> 99.99% probability.

>> that's it. >> yep. >> that's confirmed. >> i can't believe this is actually happening. >> how soon could they meet gerry, the sisters wanted to know and what's she like and how did she know shirley. we arranged the reunion the next day. gerry arrived first and told how she saw her long-lost girls on our program. >> i saw the pirk tours of shirley. i went crazy. i was hysterical because i knew that's who she was. then when i saw the girls, i knew they were mine. >> after all those years -- >> 37 years, there they are. >> what did that feel like? >> it felt great. i was hoping i could find my children before i die because i'm getting old. it was just like a miracle. >> gerry's story? shirley, who took the girls, had been her friend turned roommate, turned baby-sitter. >> she said, i'll baby-sit for

you. you know, i'll take care of her while you work. i said, well, that's great because i really thought i was blessed. >> first it was rene she looked after. then rene and pepper, and then two years later little brother raymond leonard smith, jr. -- wait, brother? it wasn't just the two girls. there was a younger brother the girls never knew they had. the father wasn't around very much. gerry supported them all with what she could make as a waitress. then shirley made a change, a positive one it seemed, at least financially. >> she got this job supposedly at the motel, managing, which was further from where i worked. so, i arranged with her to watch the kids while i worked. >> it was a god send, really, since gerry had to be hospitalized for weeks after raymond was born, and then get back to work, and find a new home to take the kids to. >> i come out there on my days

off and stay with the kids and spend some time with them. and so then i had called her and told her that i was coming to get the kids. and the next day i went out there and, gone. >> not a sign of them. no kids, no shirley. frantic then, she went to the police. what did you tell them, your children had been kidnapped? >> yep, they took the report and that's the last i heard. >> did you go back -- >> i went two or three times. the same thing, they hadn't found anything. >> gerry said she didn't know who else to talk to. so she looked on her own, and found year after year, nothing. had no idea, she said, that shirley had left pepper with barbara, that barbara persuaded a court that pepper had been essentially abandoned and thus could be adopted or that shirley stole her back again. and then there they were telling their story on "dateline."

telling how shirley and barbara had described her. >> yes, i heard what they said about me. i was not a street walker. i was a waitress all my life. >> they also said you didn't really want your children. you were happy to abandon them. >> i never abandoned my children, never. ever. and would never, ever do that. >> and she wasn't a drug addict either, she says. she's not had a smooth or easy life. and for much of it, she has missed her children and blamed herself for what happened. >> trusting shirley? >> yes. >> and for not having those kids under your wing all the time? >> that's right. >> tell me about that. >> to me, i feel like it was my fault because i put them in the hands of this monster. >> we're in a hotel room in los angeles. jerry is eager, anxious, terrified, visibly shaking.

and then they come around the corner. their first meeting in 37 years. >> the lifetime we missed. >> oh, my god. i feel like i'm dreaming still. >> so do i. >> i can't get it yet. >> i can't either. >> i just want to see you. >> can i just stare at you for a anyo minute? >> you can do anything. i wasn't there with you. you're my babies. you're my babies. it's been 37 years. >> and just about here as they cling and cry, something rather magical happens. the center of gravity shifts. >> what happened? >> it's rene who wants the

answers now. >> you will know. you will know. i promise you. you were kidnapped. you were illegally adopted. >> i can't believe she was adopted. what happened to me? i thought i would never find you ever. >> i thought i'd never find you either. i searched and i searched and i searched. i didn't know where to go. i had no money for an attorney. and when i turned "dateline" on and saw you girls, come on, honey. it's okay. >> i thought you didn't care about me. >> no, i loved you, both of you. i could never not love you. i had you. >> i was so mad at you. i was so mad at you. i didn't know. i thought you gave me away. >> no. >> they spent hours together here talking about their pasts, their likes and dislikes, their amazing similarity.

we gave them a few weeks to get to know each other. then sat down again with pepper and rene. so, there it is. you have your mother, but what now? will you have a relationship with in with me. >> move into your house? >> yes, yes, once she gets all her affairs in order. we're going to move her in. >> why? >> because i want her. my husband wants her, too, there, so. i want to have a relationship with my mom. like i was telling you earlier, i want to go shopping. i want to have lunch. i want to go buy stuff. i want to have christmas, thanksgiving, her there with me. >> and pepper? well, for one thing, pepper has adopted her real birth name, the one that her parents gave her before it was lost in the abductions and the adoption. it's ronique. ronique smith.

>> i feel very content that everything has taken place the way it has played out. finding my mom and my real identity and my biological father, and the pictures of him and all of the exciting things going on. but i think it's not over yet. i don't feel that the journey is quite over yet. it is just starting. this part of it is just starting. >> so it is, because of course, one of them is still missing. >> right. >> yes. our brother, raymond, is still missing. >> we know that he is out there somewhere. >> so he is, but not for long. we took legendary... and made it liberating. we took safe... and made it daring. we took intelligent, and made it utterly irresistible. we took the most advanced e-class ever... and made the most exciting e-class ever.

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and now for the conclusion of "lost and found," here again is keith morrison. >> it was pepper's story when we began. pepper officially now ronnique who set out to find a birth certificate and discovered a past that was richer and more complex than even she dreamed possible. to find first the mother of her memory and then her long lost birth mother and to discover that renee was her actual sister and now to learn she had a brother. raymond leonard smith jr. is what geri called him before he too was snatched away, abducted

by the babysitter, shirley. where was he now? geri gave us a copy of the birth certificate and he was about 40 now. and our chances of finding him seemed, frankly, slim. we called ray smiths all over the country. ray smith in colorado and ray smith in maryland, new jersey, kansas, but did he go by the name ray smith? and then a call back. it was the ray smith from colorado. he had the right name, the right age, and place of birth and had grown up without knowing any blood relatives. all this ray smith knew was his mother's name, according to his birth certificate was geri. he was starting to sound a lot like our ray. we asked if he would submit to a dna test. he agreed, and there was no doubt, we'd found him. we brought ray and his fiancee to a los angeles hotel and

showed him the story of his sisters, and in a way, his story, too. >> i thought that this story, itself, was sad. sounded like they had a rough life. and it was really similar to mine. >> and so it was. it began the same way, too, when shirley took him from geri except ray was turned over to a woman named annalee brown, who named him jimmy brown. the only name he knew growing up. >> she had told me that she had adopted me, but i was also shipped around a lot from home to home, because she had a lot of health problems, from what i was told. >> he was neglected, he said, and often abused. bounced around for years. until anna brown shipped him off to a colorado couple when he was 14. and that's when he found his birth certificate.

started calling himself ray smith, and began puzzling over the apparently unanswerable questions of his life. >> why did anne name me jim brown if my name was ray? how come i never knew about geri and things like that. then i wondered, you know, was i kidnapped? >> no answers from anna brown who died soon after that. and as for life in colorado, by the time he was 16 -- >> things were getting a little rough. maybe because of my past, i was not a real easy kid. so i was put into foster care. >> and then, he graduated from high school. he got a job, moved in with some friends, and started his own rock band. this you tube video shows him singing lead. and for all he has wondered about his past, he'd come to believe that he would go to the grave without ever meeting a blood relative.

until now. >> wow. they are actually in the same building that i am in right now. that is amazing to me. >> and here they were. >> oh, my baby. oh. >> hello. >> it has been forever. >> it is great to see you. >> meeting family for the first time. >> and you guys kind of look like me. [ laughter ] >> after so many years. >> so this is my first time meeting my blood. >> us, too. >> it is great. it is so great. >> and this is how pepper's desperate search for a warm memory of a lost childhood ended. >> you look like our dad. >> far bigger than she imagined and far better. >> it is good to see you. >> it is good to see you, too. >> the family that was stolen. >> it is amazing. it is the best gift ever. >> it is. >> they sat here for hours and shared their photos and got to know each other. and made plans. >> wonderful.

>> like families do. >> that is all for this edition of "dateline extra." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. due to mature subject matter, viewer discretion is advised. i can be your best friend, at the same time, if you cross me or do me wrong, i can be your worst enemy. >> an inmate with a record dating back to age 14 comes to terms with his past and present. >> i'm not coming back. >> i'm sure i heard that last time. >> i got beat up bloody and beat